


five times the love

by bucksnatalia



Series: soviet spouses drabbles [3]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss, Post-Black Widow Hunt, Red Room, Scars, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:56:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3623994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucksnatalia/pseuds/bucksnatalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to "five times the love" drabble prompt meme on Tumblr.</p><p>Five times the Winter Soldier fell in love with Natalia Romanova.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five times the love

**One.** The girls are all in a line, twenty-eight young women, supposedly the best Russia has to offer. One after another, they step up to their teacher, take position to spar, make the first move. Each time, he knocks them down without breaking a sweat. 

How utterly  _disappointing_. 

This isn’t the first time he’s been tasked with training Russia’s newest operatives, and so far it’s starting off exactly the same as it always does. Not one of them is able to land a punch — they’re lucky if he even has to take a single step to defend himself from their attempts. Most often he’s able to block them and knock them backward with one hand behind his back and his bare feet planted firmly on the mat. 

Then  _she_  steps up — the little redhead. The top of her head barely reaches his chin, making her the smallest yet. Her red hair is pull back tightly, revealing the pretty, young face of a woman in about her late teens or early twenties — but the age in her eyes tells a different story. 

Like all the others before her, she takes position before him, waiting for him to do the same. 

Unlike the others, however, her first move isn’t to throw a punch or a kick in his direction — something he can easily deflect. Instead, she makes a move to punch right — and as he shifts to block her, she spins to the left, her leg swinging up to land a kick on his cheek. 

Or it  _would’ve_  landed, if he hadn’t seen it coming. His record remains untarnished as he sidesteps, catching her foot in his metal hand and using her momentum to flip her onto her back. She falls with an ‘ _oof_ ’ like all those before her. 

But she’s the closest any of them actually came to hitting him, and he’s somewhat impressed. He even offers her a hand to help her back on her feet. She’s surprisingly good. She shows  _promise_. 

If he watches her a little more closely for the rest of the training session, can anyone really blame him? 

* * *

**Two.** Romanova. Her name is Natalia Romanova. She has red hair that spills over her shoulders in waves and blue eyes that see right through him. She is an agent of the Red Room and he is training her and therefore any sort of feelings towards her would be wildly inappropriate. 

Yet, he can’t help it. She’s… amazing. 

He stays late after every training session to clean up most of the equipment and do a bit of private training, himself. One night, however, she stays as well, standing off to the side to watch him as he beats the punching bags until they crack open and spill grain all over the floor. 

She thinks he doesn’t notice — or maybe she knows that he  _does_ , and simply doesn’t say anything. Either way, he turns eventually and she’s staring at him, like she has been the whole time, watching like he’s the most fascinating creature she’s ever seen. 

She moves closer to him, and though he knows he should step back, or tell her to leave, he stays where he is, frozen on the spot. Within moments she’s standing directly in front of him, craning her neck to meet his gaze. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Romanova,” he tells her, keeping his features blank and unfeeling. 

Of course, she can see right through the mask. “But you don’t want me to leave.” 

Damn her. Damn this woman who knows him better than he knows himself. Damn her for taking notice of him. Damn her for looking up at him from beneath those long eyelashes, with those big, beautiful blue eyes of hers. 

“No.”

Damn her for making his head spin and his knees weak. 

“I don’t.”  

Damn her. 

* * *

**Three.** It’s the third room they’ve destroyed this week. 

If they aren’t careful, their handlers are going to start to notice that the scratches and bruises marking their bodies aren’t from sparring practice. 

When they’d started this relationship, the Soldier convinced himself it was just sex. They couldn’t have feelings for each other — that is not allowed in the Red Room. Love is weakness. They’d only end up destroying one another if they were foolish enough to love. 

Yes, it’s just sex. It can’t be anything else. 

The room is a disaster area. Clothing is scattered across the floor and the furniture — his belt hanging off the doorknob, her catsuit laying across the middle of the floor, his pants hanging off the end of the bed, her bra hanging off the lampshade. At one point there was a plant set on the end table, which was struck by someone’s flailing limb and knocked over, spilling soil out onto the carpet. 

The curtains are drawn and the door is locked, sealing them inside with all the privacy they need. The only noises to break the silence are those of their desperate gasps of pleasure and the bed creaking and groaning beneath them. 

His hands can’t stay still; they travel between grasping the headboard for dear life and making fists in the sheets, and now they’re twisting in her hair as his once steady, rhythmic thrusts become erratic as he loses control. He can feel Natalia unraveling beneath him, feel her body writhing against his, her fingernails carving into his shoulder, her head falling backward as her back arches. Her legs are hooked around his waist, urging him in deeper and faster. 

He’s so close — he can feel it building in the pit of his stomach, making him gasp and moan with every thrust — until at last he feels her entire body clench, fingers latching in his hair, desperate for something to hold onto as they come together, and slowly her grip loosens itself, her body falling slack beneath him, gasping to catch her breath with a look of pure ecstasy. 

In this moment nothing matters except for her. There are no handlers who can kill them if they’re ever caught. There is no Red Room or HYDRA. There is only her and the beautiful, perfect bliss they offer each other. In this moment all that matters is the happiness he feels when he’s with her, and he can’t stop himself from pressing his parted lips to the salty skin of her exposed neck and murmuring a deep, “I love you. I love you.” 

He doesn’t know if she hears him. If she does, she doesn’t react. She certainly doesn’t say it back — but she doesn’t need to. He doesn’t want her to. 

It’s easier for them both, in the end, if he’s the only one who feels it. 

* * *

**Four.** It’s over half of a century after their inevitable separation before they see each other again — and their first meeting isn’t particularly friendly. 

Neither is the second, for that matter. 

In fact, as far as reunions with past lovers go, theirs are probably the least romantic imaginable. He’s left so many scars on her body by now that he hardly recognizes it the first time he sees it again. The skin he’d once been so familiar with is now marred by his actions, making it so unfamiliar he has to relearn every inch of her, memorize the new map of her body. It’s not like he has any objections, really. 

Sometimes it _is_  hard to look at, though. 

He doesn’t look at them, and they don’t upset him. But they catch his eye, every now and then, scar tissue sharply contrasting with her otherwise tanned skin, and when that happens — it typically doesn’t end so well. 

Though she insists it isn’t his fault, he’ll never believe that himself. They were  _his_  hands holding the guns, _his_  finger pulled the trigger. He may not have been in control — but it was  _his_  doing. He cannot be convinced otherwise. 

She figures it out, of course — and, of course, she won’t tolerate  _that_ for a single moment. 

Straddling his lap, Natalia takes his flesh hand first, and then the metal one, guiding it over her body, letting his fingers brush the scar tissue first at her hip, and then up to her shoulder, all the while telling him, “I forgive you. I forgive you.” 

He doesn’t understand it — how she could  _forgive_  him for hurting her like this — but somehow her forgiveness is so much more consoling than her insistence that he did no wrong. She’s a genius, really. 

He loves her for it. 

* * *

**Five.** He doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love her. 

Their relationship is in the past. He’s moved on. He’s learned from his mistakes. His heart may be broken, but it’s piecing itself back together everyday. It gets easier, not having her there. The emptiness isn’t so noticeable anymore. 

Even though the bed is far too big for him, and the other side is always so cold… even when he wakes forgetting what he’s lost until he opens his eyes to find her half unslept in, it’s not quite as bad as it was in the beginning. 

He doesn’t think about her as much — which isn’t saying a lot, considering she still crosses his mind far too often, but it’s something. Slowly it stops aching as the memory of her touch fades. 

Of course, it only starts up again when he hears something he thinks is funny and turns to laugh with her, only to find that she isn’t there. It gets worse still when he realizes he doesn’t remember what her laughter sounds like anymore. 

Seeing her is probably the worst thing that could ever happen, to be perfectly honest. She’s so different now than he remembers — she looks older, more worn down, like she hasn’t had a good night of sleep in ages — but then he supposes so does he. She’s just as precise as she always was, but it’s in a cold way, now. 

And she calls him  _Barnes_ ; he knows they’re no longer on a first name basis, he understands that. It still stings, tearing apart the pieces of his heart that had managed to sew themselves back together and crushing the rest into dust. 

The worst part of it all, though, isn’t the name or the coldness or how much she’s  _changed_ — it’s the sudden realization that he hasn’t made as much progress as he thought. After all, if he isn’t in love with her, it shouldn’t hurt so badly when she leaves again. 

He does love her. He’s never stopped loving her, no matter how hard he tries. 

It’s brutal and it’s ripping him to shreds and he doesn’t care. He’s still in love with her. 

God, he is so screwed. 

 


End file.
